"Well, then, if you wish me to speak, I would suggest that you strap on
your Floater and help me prepare the Ejector."
The Pilot fought a noble fight. He was no beginner. The atmosphere,
abnormally high and thick in the gravitational potential of this world
whipped and burned about the ship, but to the very last it looked as
though he might bring it under control despite that.
He even maintained course, following the extrapolated line to the point
on the northern continent toward which they were headed. Under other
circumstances, with a shade more luck, the story would eventually have
been told and retold as a heroic and masterly reversal of a lost
situation. But within sight of victory, tired body and tired nerves
clamped a control bar with a shade too much pressure. The ship, which
had almost levelled off, dipped down again.
There was no room to retrieve the final error. There was only a mile
left to fall. The Pilot remained at his post to the actual landing, his
only thought that of breaking the force of the crash, of maintaining the
spaceworthiness of the vessel. He did not survive. With the ship bucking
madly in a soupy atmosphere, few Ejectors could be mobilized and only
one of them in time.
When afterwards, the Explorer lifted out of unconsciousness and rose
to his feet, he had the definite feeling that but for himself and
the Merchant, there were no survivors. And perhaps that was an
over-calculation. His Floater had burnt out while still sufficiently
distant from surface to have the fall stun him. The Merchant might have
had less luck, even, than that.
He was surrounded by a world of thick, ropy stalks of grass, and in the
distance were trees that reminded him vaguely of similar structures on
his native Arcturian world except that their lowest branches were high
above what he would consider normal tree-tops.
He called, his voice sounding basso in the thick air and the Merchant
answered. The Explorer made his way toward him, thrusting violently at
the coarse stalks that barred his path.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.